My dad never liked the Beatles. He doesn't hate them. And I think he has mellowed over the years. He liked George Harrison. But his separation really isn't about the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. The idea was there are people who become what people want them to become. Pacifist people who sing "Hey Jude" and like popular music and like to rant against war and corporations or for that matter, rant about Democrats. Then there are people who sing "War, children...just a shot away," people who like what they like, who hate work, but do work, people who kind-of like to fight, people who get angry and let you know it. People who live and exist no matter what others think.
This classification system reminds me of a community service day in high school. Our home room chose to help a housing agency clean up some rural impoverished households. We went to this one house where some old guy had collected old tires for twenty years. There was rain water in them. They were piled up in a muddy field. The kids in my homeroom were professors' sons and daughters. They did not like the mud. They could not lift the tires. I dove right into the mud. I could lift the tires. I was throwing them on the truck. I was upset that no one was helping. I was upset that I had mud all over me. The agency lady said we should get the water out of the tires. I growled at her "Do you have a drill?" She didn't ask any more questions and let me put the tires on the truck.
That's the difference. It isn't about the Stones versus the Beatles. It is about attitude.
3 comments:
If you had to pick an example of the Stones/Beatles dichotomy in graduate school, what would it be?
I've always thought that it was split between those who "get it," and those who don't. Those who "get it" write papers instead of dissertations, who strictly enforce self-imposed deadlines, who graduate on time. The others like to think more than write, they just don't create strategies to overcome the bullshit.
I think the papers vs. dissertation point is a good one. Showing up at seminars as another? Perhaps that is a different can of worms.
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